Dead wrong, dead right!

After my late uncle died in Barnet hospital, I picked up his post - which asked him to come into outpatients for an eye test.
   When I phoned outpatients at the weekend I was forwarded to a recorded message from maternity. My dead uncle was not pregnant.
   When I complained on Monday, the apologetic lady who answered said something along the lines of, 'Oh, dear, not again!'
  Hospitals should check that the morgue notifies outpatients.
   At the time I could just about see the funny side. I now have more of a sense of humour.

Death in the house - need a new one?

A woman asked the council for a new council house when she learned somebody had previous died in hers.
1 I've seen little houses you build yourself in a day. Everybody who wants a new house should build their own. Pay back the cost on a mortgage.
2 What of the people who cannot live where somebody has died? Does that mean you cannot visit a grave? or be a caretaker of a graveyard? That does limit where you live and work.
I worried whether the previous owner of my house, an old lady, had died in it. My neighbour, who is a nurse, laughed. She said, 'What about hospitals!'
People have died or are buried in every church, hospital, under roads, the gates to most cities, on many big construction sites, the Tay bridge, Kings Cross, Clapham Junction, most London underground stations, the Channel tunnel, under car parks, in Hastings, on many beaches, most fields and villages in Belgium, Scotland and Wales, Ireland, all medieval castles, Victorian and Edwardian houses, the whole of the East End of London which was bombed in the war, large areas of France such as Normandy. Nobody would ever inherit anything. No caretaker could live in and guard the premises marked by a blue plaque as a home of the famous. And don't get in an ambulance.

The Lights Went Out

  FAMILY HISTORY
  We don't have a story about the clock that stopped. The famous song was about a true event. I've always thought there must be a logical explanation. The clock needs winding every day. When the owner died the clock stops. Or thousands of clocks stop after a death because everybody else is too busy to wind the clock. But one family in a million has a clock which stops when a person dies. Remember the old joke about the stopped clock which is always right once a day? If the clock stops with ten minutes of the death, or even the same hour, people are likely to remark. So, in any house, or any street, or any city, or any year, there's a one in twelve chance the clock will stop on the hour when somebody dies.
   However, we have a story about the lights went out.
    Trevor recalls the death of his mother's father, Bob. When Trevor's parents were at work Bob's job was to peel the potatoes and turn on the lights to do so and be ready for his daughter and son-in-law to return home. When they returned and saw all the house lights were off they knew he had died. This time the story is more logical, but in some ways equally visual, memorable, and chilling

Recycling Xmas cards and crackers

Xmas recycling. I re-use Xmas cards as gift tags. Cut out picture and punch a hole. Through the hole add a short ribbon or rubber band threaded through itself. But what can I do with used Xmas crackers? The back is not white so you can't write on it. My only thought is to stick it on white paper for a gift tag or small xmas card. Decorate the top of a box file? Cover the outside of an empty recycled jam jar and stick a white address label on the front as a label? Have you any other handy craft ideas?

Court Cases

The Nigella Lawson and Saatchi court case story continues.

If everybody found not guilty is allowed to sue the police or the opposing party then every case could drag on for the lifetime of all concerned. You will have a case for claiming legal fees. A case for damaged reputation. A case for loss of earnings. A case for stress.

Nobody will have time to study or socialise. Nobody will be allowed to talk to each other, their ex, their former employee, anybody in the case including all members of the family who have deliberately or inadvertently given evidence for the other side. Anyone on the losing side will have a case against themselves for lying in court. All three generations will be called to witness against each other creating further discord.

Nobody will be able to travel or have a holiday. Those on both sides, plus the jurors will be tied up for weeks. Nobody will be able to work. Nobody will have any money except lawyers. We should change the court system to allow a verdict which they have in Scotland, of 'not proven'. 

After five hours shopping with girlfriend he jumped off the mall balcony ...

In a smart Chinese shopping mall, pre-Xmas shopping, he jumps off the mall indoor balcony. The sad thing is that she was really buying clothes to impress him with how gorgeous she looked. He never paid her enough compliments so she kept on buying because she never felt she was good enough. He felt she was ignoring him. Now she's left feeling totally unloved and deserted. He should have told her he was taking her out to a special meal and they must go home to select the best of her new outfits to wear for him. 

How did we manage to survive before health and safety?

We didn't survive in previous centuries as well as we do today.
Polio. Antibiotics. TB.

We didn't survive OK in previous eras. Go to cemeteries or read government statistics or look at pensions statistics. In the Brontes' era her sisters died in school and she and her sisters died in their thirties. When pensions were introduced few people lived to the age at which they could claim them. People used to die being thrown from horses, or be severely injured. From William the Conqueror to Christopher Reeve.

Pretend Parents For Xmas

A 26 year old in the USA advertised on Craiglist for pretend parents who, for a payment of $8 an hour would be pretend to be concerned parents for 48 hours over Xmas. Surely lots of religious organisations have communal meals for the single, divorced and widowed? If not, communities could pair up families willing to take in a stranger, perhaps for a small contribution towards the food.
I am writing a novel which starts in Ukraine and the Jewish End End of London. In the old days a rabbi held a communal seder at his home for all single Jewish - or non-Jewish - people who came to the Friday service. Synagogues organise communal seders (passover meals) for Jewish families in the UK. The same is done in Israel. Also in Singapore so expats in foreign countries can get together at homes. Outreach Jewish organisations organise festival meals, mainly for students but open to anybody.

But has this young American lady identified a new need, not just food and the hope that talking to somebody sitting next to you will give you the chance to talk about yourself, but a group where people are paired up with listeners?

As a student I was alone in London for Xmas one year. My parents were on a holiday which ran over the Xmas period and I was on a ski trip starting the day after boxing day. I did not want to stay home in a spooky empty house.

I think I went to a communal meal somewhere but didn't connect with anybody. Maybe people should be paired up at communal meals, or even given a kind of speed-dating introduction so that you have something to tell and ask or everybody. Along with badges saying, 'Ask me about my college degree/job/hobby/hope for the future'. 

Cause and effect in crime

Nature or nurture?
   I see a pattern in many of these events, the apparently predictable and apparently unpredictable.
1 The upset person suffers two (or more) major traumas e.g. own or parent's divorce, moving home, bereavement, loss.
2 Alone/in gangs, they escape from problems into: a drawing, religion or video which portrays a battle and suggests a culprit to blame, a victim, and means of attack.
3 They commit suicide or attack their next of kin or both.
4 Or they attack somebody who they think insults them.
5 Or they attack everybody of the same type as the one they blame (another mother, redhead, Jew, white person, black person, redhead, policeman, teacher, member of football team, race, nation, person wearing a uniform, having the same hairstyle).
6 Or they attack through jealousy somebody who has what they just lost.
7 Or they 'kick the dog" - take it out on the nearest person who has nothing to do with their problem and could be trying to help them, hinder them, in the way, or simply nearby.  

Time For Tea Breaks Twice A Day (or coffee or water - with a biscuit or apple or banana or grapes)

Researchers discovered that you can only go without food and water two hours in armaments factories in war time and introduced the two tea breaks a day for elevenses and tea time. That was the innovation of the tea break - not to be kind to workers but to increase productivity. Food and drink are not luxuries but a necessity, like putting petrol in a car.

Noise Nuisance Cures

Quiet man shoots neighbours' noisy dogs, neighbours and himself. In Singapore you call the police noise nuisance department. Avoid confrontation with neighbours. Most apartment complexes have rules about noise. Prevention is better than cure.

The Sixties

Swinging Sixties? Even if I were to agree that it was 'a different culture, for some it was even more repressive because parents had not been able to get divorce nor abortions. Some boys would ask girls, how old are you? or 'are you sixteen' so as not to break the law. Some men would swear their victims to secrecy or tell them not to tell parents or others - so they knew  .... And others would get withdrawn and upset or go away if a girl said no rather than force themselves on her.
We had an au pair girl who get pregnant.

I've been a tenant and a landlady

When working overseas we had to rent out our house to meet the cost of renting overseas so I was both a landlady and a tenant.
The landlord/landlady may be a pensioner who is getting less return on their money than if they invested in something else, or more because they are hoping to live on it, is expected to pay council tax on an empty property while hoping for a tenant, thousands renovating the flat, cannot rent until taking fire precautions - fireproof furniture, fire alarms, fire extinguisher (renewed every three years),  annual electricity checks, gas checks, energy efficiency check, etc, all sorts of expenses like the ten percent to the agent (first month's rent) more if the agent manages the property, repairs, maintenance charge for communal areas, repainting inside and outside of building, several thousand to put in a new bathroom, nearly a thousand just to put in a shower and pump and the cost of the plumber's time and the tiles and retiling, rocket high insurance - almost impossible to get for an empty property. Tenants demand Sky TV aerial put in, change fitted carpet to a wooden floor ...  and endless checklist, like painting the Forth Bridge.

Missing person found - in garden. If that's the answer, the question is ...

Recently at a Toastmasters' Speakers' club we were asked, if (love/that) is the question, what is the answer. If the answer to a missing person search is a body found in their own home, a house or garden, many people, including myself, question why police don't start at the home.
When somebody goes missing you should take sniffer dogs and do a spiral search or pie chart search or a marching chequerboard search from the place they were last seen. If it's their home you start with the house and garden in case they have hidden, fallen or been imprisoned. Then you span outwards.

New methods of crime reduction

Good news for travellers, stay-at-homes and those who perpetually feel guilty.
Researchers at the university of Zurich have found that you can stimulate an area of the brain to reduce crime.
Unfortunately despite having hanging and flogging in the old days crime has not gone away because
1 There's one born every minute
2 Prisons are full of people who did not care about the punishment because they thought they would get away with it
3 Criminals opt for pleasure (crime) today and pain (payback) tomorrow, unlike hard working people who opt for pain (work) today for pleasure (spending what you rightfully earned tomorrow.
If we can prevent crime by any method that must be good for the people who would otherwise go to prison as well as the victims of crime.